Right now is our last night in the Varsity, our home for the past months here in College Park. My wife and me are "playing" Tetris, trying to fit all our stuff into the luggage. The kindergarten kids in the apartments above us have a big party with disco music, shouting, jumping and running. It is 2.55am on Tuesday "morning" and our multiple complaints did not make any difference. We called the lobby, of course only the answering machine spoke to us with very inspiring words (you can listen to them below... :).
A week ago my wife and me went for a walk through the College Park neighborhood. We found a street called Fraternity Row. Alpha Kappa Omega, Phi Kappa Tau, etc. I felt like in a movie because I only have seen and heard about these fraternities in US high school movies. Yes, I used to watch those back in the days. I hoped for some secretive action against a neighbor or maybe see some ambitious newcomers to perform some silly test for membership. Unfortunately nothing was happening this time, perhaps it isn't all like in the movies.
The experience here in the US for my wife's group with people from South Africa, Singapore, Morocco, Mexico, Israel, India, Argentina and Finland is coming to an end. But this is not goodbye to new-found friends, we only say "See you". On graduation day with many emotional moments it was more clear than ever that this was a very special journey for all. I enjoyed very much to get to know many different persons and discuss about basically everything. It has given me a lot to think about in the weeks and months to come.
December 6 is Independence Day in Finland and St Nikolaus in Germany. My wife and I had a little get-together for our international group on that day. We served ginger bread and GlÓ§gi, the Finnish version of mulled wine. We had a short official part where my wife talked about the Independence Day and we listened to the National Anthem of Finland. Then all of us shared nuts and chocolate, which St Nikolaus brought us (beforehand).
After my return from Las Vegas I struggled with the three-hour time difference. On Tuesday ‘night’ I went to sleep at 6.20am. On Wednesday I discussed this with my friend E Pei from Singapore. His comment was: No sympathy, don’t care. I’m sure some of you readers share his opinion.. ;)
E Pei and I planned for a long time to see a NBA basketball game during this autumn. Unfortunately we couldn’t make it because of the lockout. A disagreement between team owners and players regarding salaries (what else) delayed the season start to Christmas Day. So we had to come up with another plan and went to see a college basketball game on Wednesday night.
Maryland Terrapins played against St Mount Mary’s, here in College Park. The 18,000 seats of the Comcast Center were just half filled, perhaps because of the heavy rain. One section was dedicated to reporters and commentators only. I’m still amazed how popular these college sports are, unthinkable back home. College basketball is played 2x20 minutes and the first half was rather boring because the Terrapins had an early lead and were never in any danger. Highlights were two slam dunks; those boys jumped really high.
The half-time show was really fun. In addition to the cheerleaders there were a few coupons give-away competitions for someone in the audience. The best one was ‘Show us your moves! Dance for your dinner’. Everyone could dance to some disco music and the cameras searched for the best moves, shown on the screen. As it came down to two, the cheering of the audience decided on the winner. Seems I have to do some work on my moves, I didn’t even make it to the screen..
During the second half a thing called momentum turned around the game. The home team was too sure of victory and suddenly they trailed. That woke up the audience and the atmosphere was now great! Just one second before the end, Maryland was leading by one single point and scored two more points for a 77-74 victory. Great drama, go terps!
